Mobile App Development Blog

15 Powerful Social Media Tips For 2017 That Will Boost ROI

Social media marketing can be a great way to create new leads and ultimately increase your ROI. However, the multitude of strategies and platforms out there can be difficult to wrap your head around. In the information below, we’ll go over some of the top social media marketing tips for 2017 so you can start implementing them into your own marketing plan.

1) Use Snapchat Stories and GeoFilters

Snapchat is a huge potential market. In fact, over 100 million users watch about 10 billion snaps a day. By creating your own Snap stories and geofilters, you can tap into that massive audience.

Geofilters allow Snapchat users to add a brand’s logo or other design to their snap photos. You can create your own Geofilter for your business or event for as little as $5. Not only are they relatively cheap, but Geofilters are a great interactive advertising tool as well.

Snap Stories, on the other hand, allow you to show videos and photos to people who follow you on the social platform. This can be a great way to show off your company culture or even new product launches. For example, Pixar recently had a Snap Story where they took followers on a virtual tour of the Pixar campus in Emeryville. They also shared short interviews with some of their interns about why they became animators and what they love about Pixar.

2) Get Specific with Target Audiences on Facebook

The beauty of Facebook’s Ad Manager tool is that it allows you to create an audience based on very specific criteria. One of the more useful of which is the ability to target by Life Events.

Facebook’s Life Events feature allows people to let their friends know about a new change in their life by adding it to their timeline. For example, say you own a bridal shop. When someone changes their relationship status on Facebook to engaged, it’s added as a Life Event. You can now have Facebook display your ads to these people directly. Obviously newly engaged people are very likely to be looking for the types of products and services you provide, which makes them leads.

You can also target people based on interests, recent behavior (such as going to church), estimated income, relationship status, education level, and more. Using these types of filters can help you narrow down your audience to only those who are most likely to be interested in your brand.

3) Make it Look Good

When advertising on social media, visuals are very important and so is the messaging. You must remember that most users are scrolling past an incredible amount of content–your ad must stand out in order to gain their attention.

Be sure that your ad is aesthetically pleasing and feels compelling enough for the viewer to click on it. In other words, you want them to be enticed but relaxed enough to click through to your landing page.

Take a look at the ad above from Slack, a cloud-based communication service for the workplace. Not only is the ad visually striking, but it also does an excellent job of explaining their product in a fun and meaningful way. Slack’s marketing department knows that most people in the workforce detest sitting through pointless meetings. Keeping this in mind, they crafted clever copy that would greatly interest their demographic: less meetings and time saved. And who doesn’t love a unicorn?

4) Use Custom Hashtags

While the primary use of hashtags is to help people find content based on categories, custom hashtags can be a great way to get people interested in your brand and encourage them to share your content. Moreover, you can use the same hashtag across multiple social media platforms.

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Take this custom hashtag from Marvel, for example. In 2015, Marvel created the hashtag #MarvelHalloween. Hundreds of fans used the hashtag alongside photos of their own Marvel halloween costumes. Not only was this free advertising for Marvel, but it was a great way for them to foster consumer engagement with their brand.

5) Forget About the Landing Page

Landing pages have long been a standard practice, but a new and rising trend has many advertising skipping them altogether. This is because social platforms like Facebook have integrated call-to-action buttons into their ads. For example, you could add a button that says “call now” or “shop now” which allows consumers to reach you immediately instead of having to go through a landing page. Eliminating landing pages allows you to decrease the amount of steps required which will increase the rate of conversion.

6) Research Trending Topics Before You Create Your Content

Twitter can be a great resource for researching engagement for potential content topics. For example, say you tweet an article or photo you found. Measure the amount of engagement it gets using Twitter analytics. If it performs well, it may be a good idea for you to create your own content on that topic. You can also take a look at Twitter’s trending hashtags in order to get an idea of what people are sharing and discussing.

7) Rework and Recycle Your Best Copy

If you’ve ever created an ad in AdWords, you know that quality score has a big impact on where your ads are displayed. Social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter have similar metrics for their ads: Relevance Score and Quality Adjusted Bids, respectively. These scores are important because they can either decrease or increase your cost-per-click.

If you’ve already seen success with the ads you’ve created in AdWords, try using the same or similar language in your ads on social media sites. In addition to saving you some time and effort, it’s likely that you’ll see similarly positive engagement rates.

8) Pay Attention to the Data

Once you put up a new ad on social media, you’ll need to regularly monitor its performance. For one, your ad may not perform as well as you thought it would and you may need to make some adjustments to your copy or your target audience. Secondly, sometimes even ads that were once performing very well can start to slump. This is due to “audience fatigue.”

This ad, as you can see, is not performing very well. This is due in part to audience fatigue–people interacted with the ad in the beginning and then lost interest after seeing it a number of times.

Audience fatigue happens when the same users are shown the same ad over and over. In order to avoid this, you’ll need to regularly refresh your content. You may even want to try creating similar variants of the same ad. Keeping your content updated can help you increase engagement and your ROI.

9) Take Advantage of Remarketing

Remarketing allows you to target people who have already shown interest in your product or service. For example, say someone shops around on your site and abandons the items in their cart. By using remarketing ads on social media, you can display these items to that user and encourage them to come back to your site and complete their purchase. This technique is a great way to get a second chance at conversions you may have missed.

10) Monitor Engagement for Your LinkedIn Posts

LinkedIn Publisher allows you to monitor the people who are engaging with your content, and it’s a great way to establish professional relationships and foster conversation surrounding your brand. Simply go to the analytics page of your last post and click on “Who’s Viewed Your Posts.” This will display a selection of viewers and stats for the last week. You can also see who has liked, commented, or shared your posts. This helps ensure that you’re responding to comments and targeting people who show interest in your brand. You can even reach out to people who have shared your post.

11)Make an Impression with Facebook and Instagram Carousel Ads

While Facebook and Instagram are a great places to advertise your products and services, there’s also a lot of competition. Make your ad stand out in the crowd of other advertisers with captivating images and ad copy. There is also a relatively new feature that allows you to display a carousel or slideshow of images within a single ad. You can even add transitions, music, or narration. These types of advertisements are a great way to increase the quality and potential engagement of your content.

12) Use Live Video Broadcasting

Live video has become incredibly popular across various social media platforms, including Facebook,Twitter, and YouTube. Live video on social media allows brands to reach consumers directly and create an interactive experience. For instance, you could host a live question and answer session. Because it is live, there is a sense of urgency that encourages people to log on and view.

Companies that use live platforms to market their products and services have seen much success. For example, Benefit Cosmetics began producing a weekly live show called “Tipsy Tricks with Benefit!” which they air each Thursday. On the show, the hosts drink wine and try on products while they answer questions from viewers. Their first broadcast gathered 42,000 live viewers, and they have continued to see success in later videos.

13) Embrace Virtual Reality

While it’s still evolving in many ways, virtual reality (VR) has begun popping up all over social media. In June of 2016, Facebook started supporting 360 videos and photos. Since then, many companies and organizations have used the feature to release an amazing and entirely unique online experience. Snapchat filters are also an example of augmented or virtual reality, and they can be a great way to reach people and generate excitement around your brand.

As far as marketing is concerned, you could use these VR features to produce interactive ads for your audience. With the right content, virtual reality ads may just sell themselves.

Check out this awesome 360 video from Coachella:

No doubt they’ll be selling a few more tickets next year.

14) Social Media is Now Mainstream Media

Social media isn’t just about poking and tweeting at your friends anymore. Many people rely on social media platforms like Facebook for news and media coverage as well. The distinct advantage of social platforms as a media and news source is that they provide updates in realtime and users can converse about it in the comments.

So what does this have to do with social media marketing and advertising?

It’s important to know how people use social media in order to best target them. Instead of focusing on selling your products or services through blatant advertisements, you might want to try a different approach that could better appeal to your audience.

You may want to consider focusing on brand image and storytelling. For example, publish updates that are relevant and newsworthy to things happening outside of your company. If you have a blog, produce content that relates to your product or service without being a direct sales pitch. This type of content may have a better shot at resonating with viewers. Finally, you should always pay attention to real world events and tragedies. A tasteful post to show your support can go a long way.

15)Turn Your Employees into Brand Celebrities

A popular new trend that many companies are taking advantage of is to turn employees into brand ambassadors. For example, you could have a writer from your company set up their own public Twitter and Facebook accounts for professional updates. This way readers who enjoy the content your employee produces can follow them individually. Essentially, you can turn your employees into celebrities for your business, which is great way to generate excitement for your brand.

Conclusion

Using these tips, you’ll be able to improve the quality of your social media content and advertisements and begin increasing your ROI.